“Thinking out loud” tonight after finishing a long paper for one of my classes:<\/p>\n\n\n
I heard a Christian podcaster talking about “axioms” the other day – how they are necessary, but should be limited. He was using the term in its technical sense: “a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true.”<\/p>\n\n\n
We all have axioms because so much of the “truth” we build our lives upon is, by nature, unproveable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
So the believer has this among his axioms: “There is a God”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I love apologetics and logical arguments and philosophical “proofs” for the existence of God. They have their place and serve a purpose. Still … at the end of the day, we must admit there is no proof that God exists – at least not proof that is universally evident and accepted.<\/p>\n\n\n
But here’s the thing: The atheist is in the same boat. Among his axioms is this: “There is no God”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
That axiom is likewise unprovable. He must “take it on faith”.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
And that’s what an axiom is.<\/p>\n\n\n
So this podcaster said his theology rested on just 3 axioms:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
1) God exists<\/p>\n\n\n
2) God is good<\/p>\n\n\n
3) Scripture comes from God<\/p>\n\n\n
This seems pretty solid to me. Each axiom is necessary. And each is ultimately unproveable.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
They function as “givens”. And that’s what an axiom is.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
All other propositional truth claims can be built with these 3 axioms as the base.<\/p>\n\n\n
So, for example: “If God is good and Scripture comes from Him, then Scripture is true.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Thinking out loud” tonight after finishing a long paper for one of my classes: I heard a Christian podcaster talking about “axioms” the other day – how they are necessary, but should be limited. He was using the term in its technical sense: “a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5605,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions\/5605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}